William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . perilousto draw inferences of this kind from phrases whicha dramatist puts into the mouths of men andwomen who are interpreting, not their authors con-victions and feelings, but a phase of character, aprofound human experience, or the play of that MARRIAGE AND LONDON 89 irony which every play-wright from yEschylus toIbsen has felt dramatist reveals hispersonality as distinctlyas does the lyric poet, butnot in the same view of life,his conception of humand e s t i n y, his attitudetoward society, his idealsof character,
William Shakespeare; poet, dramatist, and man . perilousto draw inferences of this kind from phrases whicha dramatist puts into the mouths of men andwomen who are interpreting, not their authors con-victions and feelings, but a phase of character, aprofound human experience, or the play of that MARRIAGE AND LONDON 89 irony which every play-wright from yEschylus toIbsen has felt dramatist reveals hispersonality as distinctlyas does the lyric poet, butnot in the same view of life,his conception of humand e s t i n y, his attitudetoward society, his idealsof character, are to befound, not in detachedpassages framed and col-oured by dramatic neces-sities, but in the large andconsistent conception oflife which underlies theentire body of his work;in the justice and sanitywith which the externaldeed is bound to the in-ward impulse and the visi-ble penalty developed outof the invisible sin; in thebreadth of outlook uponhuman experience, thesanity and balance ofjudgment, the clarity andsweetness of temper which. VIEW 0¥ WARWICK IN SHAKESPEARES TIME. From an old print. 90 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE kept an imagination always brooding over the tragicpossibilities of experience, and haunted by all man-ner of awful shapes of sin, misery, and madness,poised in health, vigour, and radiant serenity. It is perilous to draw any inference as to thehappiness or unhappiness which came into Shake-speares life with his rash marriage. It is true thathe spent many years in London ; but when he hadbeen there only eleven years, and w^as still a youngman, he secured a home for himself in became a resident of his native place w^hen hewas still in middle life ; there is evidence that hisinterest in Stratford and his communication with itwere never interrupted ; that his care not only for hisfamily but for his father was watchful and efficient;there is no reason to doubt that, taking into accountthe difficulties and expense of travel, his visits tohis home were
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